You say cronyism, I say helping a friend

A couple of weeks after I’d started work in Dublin, a colleague-of-a-colleague asked to pick my brains about the British publishing industry. He’d written a few books for the Irish market and was keen to spread his wings. Could I put him in touch with someone in England?

No problems, I said. If you let me have the proposal, I’ll look through it, make any suggestions I think might help your chances in the bigger, more saturated UK market, and once you’re ready with that and your sample chapters, I’ll steer it towards the appropriate editor. Of course, since I didn’t know the publishing house’s forward schedule, I couldn’t tell him if his book would be a fit; but if the editor thought it might be, the proposal would go forward to the commissioning meeting for due diligence and then….

The would-be author, a successful businessman in his, I’m guessing, mid-fifties, cut me off. ‘Oh!’ he said (I’m paraphrasing here). ‘I don’t have any ideas for a book yet. I just wanted to work with a big British publisher. Can’t you introduce me to an editor who’d just agree to publish my book once I *did* have an idea? Doesn’t it work like that over there?’

I was reminded of this yesterday, listening to BBC Radio 4’s morning news show, ‘Today’. In a somewhere-in-the-middle news item about the Irish election, the presenter made an offhand reference to ‘the end of cronyism’. It pulled me up short. Not because of its incisive commentary (hardly) – but because it suddenly struck me, listening to the end of the report, that it’s so much harder than it sounds for the nation to achieve.

From the outside (by which, for these purposes, I mean England), it all looks so simple. Ireland got rich, people did each other favours that they really shouldn’t have; this behaviour should cease and desist instantly. Even the news I’ve seen from within Ireland seems to think this is the answer. To which I say, we’re missing the point.

The Irish mentality is hard-wired to lend a hand, to try to help each other out. To go back to my author-businessman story, I can see how it came about. You want to write a book and become a British bestseller? No problem. I know someone who worked in that field. She’ll help you to do it. No matter if you have talent, the appropriate skills or, you know, an actual concept for a book; that’s all secondary. From an English perspective, this looks utterly bonkers. But two successful businessmen thought this was more than reasonable, and looped me in. Sound familiar?

(image c/o Zazzle) Right, who's first?

During my time in Ireland, I saw iterations of this ‘I know someone who can help’ mentality, in different aspects of daily life, time and again. And really, the sentiment is admirable. Why on earth *not* help someone if you can? I’ve been aided in this way, personally and professionally, more times than I can count. And in Ireland you see why the instinct is particularly strong; it’s a small country with historically large families; your degree of separation from everyone must be far fewer than the traditional six. So ‘helping someone’ in the abstract becomes, very quickly, helping your niece; or your boyfriend’s sister, or your sister’s boyfriend. Something that’ll make the next family gathering beyond awkward if you say no.

The American version of this, of course, is networking, where the emphasis has somehow shifted from how can I help others? to how can others help me? A logical consequence of arriving in the Land of Opportunity and needing the support of others to get on your feet, I suppose. But in Britain, where nepotism is a fate right up there with queue jumping, cronyism isn’t a close cousin of, well, helping your cousin. It’s wrong. And it’s absolutely not something you want in business.

We all know that whatever went on on that golf course, and doubtless in countless other situations we don’t know about, was desperate and should never have happened. But my point is this. When we’re looking to rebuild Ireland, especially those of us looking from the outside, we should think carefully before we insist the Irish give up the urge to help each other along. It’s a core component of the national character, and when it’s not bringing down the Euro, we’re all incredibly pleased to be associated with it.

14 Responses

Helping people out is one thing, but good grief we’ve an awful lot of people who want to be helped out without ever trying to help themselves. That would-be author story just makes me want to slap him in the face.

Doesn’t he? Argh. It’s that cronyism only works for people with some sense of entitlement. The regular, hard working people don’t rely on dig-outs and hand-outs and that kind of thing. It’s the already privileged who benefit.

Me too. I think that’s more indicative of the cluelessness of incredibly arrogant businessmen who haven’t a clue how publishing works than cronyism per se. If anyone tried that on me (or indeed anyone I know who works in the media), they’d have got a lecture, not a helping hand. To be honest, I’m uncomfortable with the (possibly unintentional) impression given by this post (“Doesn’t it work like that over there?’) that this is how Irish, as opposed to British, publishing works, which isn’t really fair to Irish publishers. Irish big business, on the other hand….

I think a lot of this does make sense. There’s a lot in Ireland that’s more about knowing the right person at the right time, and yes, the degree of separation is not great. I think there might be problems with banning it. I mean, if I was to buy books for the Library in Chapters, I know one of their employees – and that would be typical in a lot of industries. l don’t know that you could legislate in a good way to get rid of it, I actually don’t think it would be practical.

I think it’s true though, many Irish people automatically network with people, trying to find a way of getting help from someone else to get things done.

Thanks for all your comments, and for not lynching me; it’s always tricky to write as the outsider without bringing down the wrath of a nation. Dissent, however, is all good…!

Anna/Claire: I used an example from publishing simply because it’s where I work, so it’s what I know. I adore the industry and it certainly wasn’t my intention for the post to read as a critique of Irish publishing. I agree that there are a ton of really sound Irish-grown publishers doing spectacular work out there, and putting their authors through the due diligence expected in any business. And, absolutely, when I learned what the would-be author was hoping I could do, I put him straight pretty quickly. Imagine, though, being two weeks into your new job in a new country, and being faced with this request; it took me a while to recover! I suspect it’s also particularly symptomatic of business book authors; I’ve never met a novelist who’d dream of pulling such a trick.

I do think, though, that there’s still a lingering feeling among some smaller, independents, that publishing is somehow a ‘gentleman’s pursuit’ that exists outside conventional business norms. This is probably true of a lot of small businesses in many countries, but I used an example from publishing because it’s my industry. It was one of my very first experiences in Ireland of an industry I’d worked in for over a decade in the UK and the US, and I’d never come across that elsewhere, so it did have an Irish flavour to me….

Wyvernfriend/Shane L: yes, exactly. I think generosity’s not a bad thing. It’s when it turns into an inner circle and that circle’s never broadened to include talent or merit that it becomes an issue.

‘From an English perspective, this looks utterly bonkers’, I think that from ANY perspective this looks utterly bonkers.

Not sure how I feel about this post, its a pretty extreme example and I’ve got to say I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this in publishing in Ireland. Think its fair to say that most people (not all, as not all have ANYWHERE) who have been published through Irish publishing groups have done so out of merit, not any huge unlying cronyism.

Perhaps I’m just being naive but there’s a big difference between supporting ability and handing out ‘jobs for the lads’.

As I stated above, I’m not out to attack publishing (in Ireland, or anywhere else!). Publishing’s merely the example I used because it’s the industry I work in.

And yes, absolutely; there’s a huge difference. My point was simply that Irish people (in any industry) are far more naturally prone, in my experience, to helping people out than you necessarily see in other countries; and that it would be a shame if this was lost forever in case people became afraid it smacked of jobs for the boys.

I used to be told by close friends about mine about how frustrating it was to get a job in certain sectors in Ireland and I always thought they were exagerating. I’ve lived here all my life, and got jobs without out having to know someone. Or maybe I did know someone and just didn’t realise that was how I was getting my job!

Recently, I started studying to become a primary teacher as a mature student. I tried to ring a few schools in my locality to get teaching practice (for free, college required). They couldn’t help me, they only help their past pupils, and suggested I contact my own former school. I did. The principal sent me an e-mail saying that she did try and help former pupils but couldn’t help me although if I knew someone who worked in the school maybe I could be accommodated.

I was hurt and disgusted, and frightened. Is this what my future will be like when I eventually qualify?

[…] week, my friend and colleague Sarah Franklin posted on The Anti Room , a piece called ‘You say cronyism, I say helping a friend,’ about the propensity of Irish people to give each other ‘a dig out’. She mused […]